Transition from childhood to adolescence is key to mental and emotional health for young people
As children get older, personal wellbeing scores drop, with a bigger decrease seen in girls, suggests an Education Policy Institute report
The Education Policy Institute has released a report on ‘Young people's mental and emotional health’, which examines ‘trajectories and drivers in adolescence’. The report analysed factors across the individual, family, school and area levels, in order to understand what drives personal wellbeing.
The data for the report were based on a combination of the data from the Millennium Cohort Study, which surveyed 5000 young people born around the year 2000 who live in England, and data from virtual focus groups of young people aged between 14 and 16 years old.
On average, mental and emotional health suffers as children leave primary school and begin secondary school, with a continued drop as children move through secondary school. For girls, this drop in personal wellbeing is greater than for boys, with a particular focus on personal appearance. One in seven girls reported being unhappy with their appearance at the end of primary school, compared to one in three by the age of 14 years old.
However, while self-esteem remains at a broadly steady level as girls move into late adolescence, for boys, self-esteem continues to fall. In particular, young people in focus groups reported that the transition to secondary school has a great effect on self-esteem, stemming from worries around fitting in and being judged by their peers.
In terms of the key influences on mental and emotional wellbeing, the report describes a number of drivers. These include:
- Family income
- Frequency of exercise
- Social media use
- Weight
- Being bullied
- Frequent arguments with parents
- Being placed in the bottom stream in a class
- Poor maternal health
- Maternal depression in infancy
- Feeling unsafe in their neighbourhood
These results highlight a number of important areas to target in policy, both in order to improve young people's mental health and to prevent longer term mental health problems from developing later in life. The report recommends that as most lifelong mental health issues begin in adolescence and early adulthood, that the best strategies to reduce the burden of mental ill health as a whole will prioritise interventions for people earlier in life.
The key policy recommendations from the report include releasing a post-pandemic wellbeing funding package to schools, in order to tackle the effects of lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic on young people, as studies have indicated that the pandemic has had a significant effect on the mental health of children and young people. It is also recommended that the current mental health content in PSHE and related curricula should be expanded on, to help young people understand how characteristics, identities, backgrounds and stereotypes can affect their mental and emotional health, especially those that centre on children's beliefs about themselves, including their appearance.
Several of the recommendations focus on the identified drivers of poor mental and emotional wellbeing. The report states that all young people should have access to options for physical activity and a cross-government strategy should be developed to reduce family poverty and ensure children and young people feel safe in their communities.
The report concludes that the transition from childhood to adolescence is an important turning point for mental and emotional health, especially for girls, and that policies aiming to improve wellbeing in young people should take this into consideration.
Further information and resources
- The full Education Policy Institute report, published January 2021: https://bit.ly/2YJsenx
Plans revealed for groundbreaking child health research hub at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park
The National Centre for Child Health Technology will be the first of its kind, aiming to develop technology to address national priorities for child health, including obesity and mental health
The Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park was set up after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and aimed to improve population health and wellbeing. At a virtual conference at the end of January, plans to develop the legacy park further were announced, which include developing a National Centre for Child Health Technology.
The plans for this centre are aimed at making the UK a global leader in paediatrics and child health by developing technology to address key national priorities in child health research. These include childhood obesity, child and adolescent mental health, long-term conditions and prevention. The benefits of this centre will be to support children in leading healthy lives, prevent childhood deaths, reduce hospital admissions for children with long-term health conditions and revolutionise the delivery of healthcare for children and young people.
Professor Paul Dimitri, Professor of Child Health and Director of Research and Innovation at Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust, commented on the plans: ‘Investing in the health and healthcare of children and young people makes sense - our future in fact depends on it.’
He went on to say that ‘the CCHT alone will generate £30m in research funding, attract £50m in private sector investment and will deliver over £200m in savings to the NHS in the next 10 years’.
Further information and resources
- Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park child health research hub announcement: https://bit.ly/2MSmxRt (January 2021)
Benefits of school counselling for young people with mental health issues
A large-scale study has been published in The Lancet: Child and Adolescent Health, which found that despite the costs, school-based counselling is effective and should be considered a viable treatment option for children suffering from mental health issues.
The study took place over 2 years, between 2016 and 2018. A total of 329 children aged 13–16 years old were split between two groups, one who received school-based counselling alongside access to their school's usual pastoral care, and one group who only had access to the usual pastoral care. The children were surveyed at 6-week intervals and 50 of the participants were interviewed to supplement the quantitative data.
On average, the school-based counselling was found to help young people with mental health challenges, in particular those related to self-esteem and achieving personal goals.
The authors noted that the school counselling approach is likely to be effective for many young people, with approximately two thirds of the participants reporting that the counselling sessions were wholly or mostly helpful. However, the authors stated that counselling should not be viewed as a ‘magic bullet’ and instead should be seen as one possible intervention to be offered as part of a range of options to be offered to children and young people.
The lead author of the paper, Professor Mick Cooper, commented that ‘Adolescence is a period of rapid change for young people and makes them particularly vulnerable to mental health problems, so studies like ours, which is the first large scale project of its type ever to be conducted in the UK, are vital to assess how mental health services can be improved in schools’.
It is hoped that this study will lay the groundwork for future research, and encourage exploration of the most effective ways to improve the mental health of children and young people.
Further information and resources
- The Lancet study, published January 2021: https://bit.ly/39OXyrj
More than one in five children in reception are overweight or obese
The latest statistics on obesity in children by Public Health England, show that the prevalence of obesity increases between children in reception and those in Year 6
The Public Health England report on trends in child obesity was released in February 2021 and compiles data from the National Child Measurement Programme and the Health Survey for England, to present an overall picture of patterns in child obesity in England.
The data reveal that, based on their body mass index (BMI), more than one in five children aged 4–5 years old are classed as overweight or obese, rising to one in three children aged 10–11 years old. Additionally, the overall prevalence of obesity in children in reception (4–5 years old) has not significantly changed since the 2006/2007 period. In 2017, the government announced a plan to significantly reduce childhood obesity. Interestingly, the Health Survey for England data show a drop in obesity prevalence among 11–15 year olds between 2017 and 2018. However, in 2019, the prevalence rose to its highest level since 2004.
The prevalence of obesity was found to be higher in boys aged 2–15 years old than in girls of the same age. Other differences in obesity prevalence were found between children in different deprivation percentiles, with the most deprived children having the highest prevalence of obesity, and region, with the West Midlands reporting the highest prevalence of childhood obesity.
Earlier this year, the STOP Project (Science and Technology in childhood Obesity Policy) published its latest findings on childhood obesity across Europe. They also found that families from low incomes are at greater risk of becoming overweight or obese. The leader of the project, Professor Franco Sassi, said, ‘The behaviours of children from low socio-economic backgrounds are the ones we understand the least, and the drivers of those behaviours are what we need to change if we want to make a significant difference in childhood obesity’.
Childhood obesity is an increasing public health concern, with one in three children aged 10–11 years old being classified as overweight or obese according to their BMI
Further information and resources
- Public Health England child obesity data, published February 2021: https://bit.ly/3azKR2J
- STOP Project data, published January 2021: https://bit.ly/3aymsux